Congress

Inside the House vs. Senate rifts threatening the GOP agenda

Published

5 months ago

May 11, 2026

Republicans have a major obstacle to clear if they are going to avoid a legislative pileup in the months before the midterms: each other.

Intraparty tensions between House and Senate Republicans have boiled over in recent weeks. It has spilled into public view in the form of finger-pointing, shade-throwing and warnings that Republicans either need to figure out how to play nice or risk paying a price in what is already shaping up to be a rough election year.

“We control Washington. When … we don’t get things done, we’re making a huge mistake,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said about his House counterparts. “We’ve got to deliver.”

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) also lamented the recent divisions within the GOP’s ranks: “You can either be part of a functional majority and get almost everything or you can hold out and get nothing and be in the minority next time.”

“I guess we can all vote ‘no’ together — that’ll be exciting,” the House Appropriations chair added.

Republicans managed to resolve one long and particularly nasty disagreement late last month when Speaker Mike Johnson and his conference finally approved a Senate-passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill he previously had described as a “crap sandwich.”

But the two chambers return to session Monday after a short recess with Republicans at odds on everything from housing to a soon-to-expire surveillance law to a long-shot election proposal. And they are facing a shrinking window to either get on the same page or leave much of their legislative agenda stuck in limbo as Republicans prepare to spend more time back home campaigning.

Who is at fault? The answer mostly depends on which side of the building the question is asked.

Some Senate Republicans have started to doubt that the House will be able to pass much of anything for the rest of the year. Their exasperation was fueled watching the DHS and surveillance bills languish last month as rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers went to war with each other — and with Johnson.

And while the House Republicans spent much of the past month fighting amongst themselves, senior members of the conference are trying to channel some of the rank-and-file anger at the Senate, rather than at Johnson, who fights day-to-day to control his tiny majority. A growing chorus of House GOP lawmakers also want the Senate to eliminate the filibuster — something Republicans don’t have the votes to do — and have otherwise kvetched about their perception that senators have cut them out of big decisions over the past year.

“The House is doing its job,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “Sometimes it gets a little tense, but we’re still getting stuff done. We’re sending it over to the Senate, so we look forward to them doing their job.”

Cole, no one’s idea of an ideological rabble-rouser, also accused Senate GOP leaders of not coordinating enough with Johnson. The tensions, he said, have been “created by bad management in Senate leadership and by not being transparent and open with us in the House.”

Interchamber sniping is a perennial fact of life in Washington. Due to its 60-vote filibuster rule, the Senate requires a modicum of bipartisanship to do most legislating, while the majoritarian House does not. Democrats faced similar divides when they had a trifecta government under former President Joe Biden — complete with rampant calls to eliminate the filibuster and a failed attempt to make a carve-out for voting rights legislation.

Under the GOP trifecta, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune meet regularly to coordinate the Republican agenda, with their staffers also keeping in close touch. But recent weeks have tested their relationship.

Johnson has occasionally joined ultraconservatives in trashing Senate bills, while the typically mild-mannered Thune, in turn, delivered increasingly blunt assessments of the House’s decision to sit on the DHS funding bill. However, when the House ultimately passed it by voice vote — the same way the Senate did weeks earlier — Thune declined to rub it in Johnson’s face.

“He has to do what he has to do, I know that, and he knows the kind of the challenges we face over here,” Thune said about Johnson. “He needs every Republican and that’s a real challenge on a good day, and sometimes there aren’t a lot of good days around here.”

Johnson acknowledged “emotion” and “frustration” within his own conference but downplayed the drama, attributing it to a “cumbersome” legislative process in comments to reporters.

The GOP’s most pressing task is meeting President Donald Trump’s self-imposed June 1 deadline to get an immigration enforcement funding bill to his desk. House and Senate Republicans, after weeks of jockeying, managed to sign off on the same budget blueprint, a key prerequisite.

But they now need to navigate a political firestorm after Senate Republicans released draft legislation last week that included $1 billion in Secret Service security funding that can be used for at least parts of Trump’s proposed White House ballroom. Some GOP lawmakers and aides have privately lamented the inclusion of funding for a project voters have shown little support for and are questioning whether the provision should be removed.

Even the bigger intraparty fights could be coming.

Republicans bought themselves until mid-June to figure out how to extend the hot-button spy authority known as Section 702. The House passed a three-year extension of the surveillance law last month but married it to a permanent ban on a Federal Reserve digital currency that is DOA in the Senate.

Negotiations are ongoing over how to extend Section 702, which is aimed at foreigners abroad but has the ability to sweep in communications with Americans. But House hard-liners, with support from some GOP senators, are doubling down.

“The Senate is going to have to address the central bank digital currency,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said. “I think the public is going to demand it.”

Burlison warned Republicans to start negotiating early and that if they “want to push it all the way to the end like they did these last two times, they’re going to get the same result.”

The digital currency provision is also implicated in another intra-GOP standoff, this one over housing legislation. The Senate passed a five-year ban on a government-backed digital currency as part of a bipartisan housing package it passed last year, but that bill is now stalled in the House.

That has frustrated Senate Republicans, who believe getting a housing bill to Trump’s desk would be an easy way to show voters that the party is responsive to their affordability anxieties.

“It’s being held up by one or two members of Congress, and I respect their opinion, but I’d like to see the president call them up and say, ‘Hey guys, what’s the problem here?’” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

Trump has in fact considered getting involved — but not to urge the House to pass the Senate bill as-is. Instead, he has privately raised objections to some provisions in the Senate-passed version that would place curbs on corporate ownership of some single-family homes.

While they wait for Trump to go public with his concerns, House GOP leaders have made clear the Senate bill won’t pass their chamber, and they’re now working through a plan to amend the contentious parts of the Senate product and send it back.

“Conversations continue,” House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said before the recess. “We just are looking for the path to get a bicameral bill.”

But “bicameral” is an especially loaded word right now, given the ongoing GOP sniping that reached a crescendo during the DHS funding drama.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer unloaded on the Senate after Republicans there left out immigration enforcement funding that Democrats fiercely opposed.

“This is what Americans get so upset with about politicians. This is literally what they’re mad about,” he said. “These guys won’t do their jobs.”

Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Congress

Scalise heads to Florida to boost several GOP candidates

Published

1 hour ago

October 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is heading to Florida to boost a raft of Republicans as the House GOP campaign arm launches new spending across the ruby-red state.

Republicans are working to ensure they prevail in a series of tight Florida races after they redrew several districts in their favor. Several GOP incumbents have warned the party needs to do more to help put out fires across these areas. Scalise is just the latest Republican leader who is looking to shore up candidates in once-thought-to-be-safe red territory.

Scalise will hold a GOTV rally Thursday with Republican Dan Green who is challenging Democratic Rep. Darren Soto in central Florida’s 9th District, according to an invite obtained by Blue Light News. Soto should be toast from the GOP redistricting effort, but he’s still hauling in significant fundraising and Democrats say their internal polling shows a tight race.

Over on the Gulf Coast, the National Republican Congressional Committee is also launching its first coordinated ad spending for Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on Wednesday. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, GOP governor nominee Rep. Byron Donalds and Sen. Ashley Moody, who is also up for reelection, are appearing at a Saturday rally with Luna.

President Donald Trump won Luna’s district by 13 points and Democrats have tried and failed to target her before. But Republicans are warning the headwinds are stronger this year and forcing a tighter than expected race.

Republicans are also working to shore up key seats in South Florida. Scalise will be with GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in the Miami area Friday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share not yet public details. Salazar has raised alarm about Republican erosion with Hispanic voters in his district and other states over the Trump administration’s mass deportations.

Scalise will boost Ryan Elijah, the Republican who beat scandal-ridden Rep. Cory Mills in the primary in Florida’s 7th District, according to another person with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to speak candidly. The party feels better about the seat in recent weeks, especially more than they would have if Mills had won the GOP nomination.

The House Majority Leader will also hold events with Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, according to the person.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The unknowns of a Sherrod Brown return

Published

7 hours ago

October 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats may be rooting for Sherrod Brown’s comeback, but they are not exactly prepared for what’d happen next.

If Brown wins on Election Day, Democrats likely face an uncomfortable choice: break longstanding party rules to restore his seniority on powerful committees like Banking, Agriculture and Finance or potentially make him start over at the bottom.

Complicating the issue: Brown will immediately need to prepare for a grueling re-election fight in 2028 and his campaign could greatly benefit from two years with a high-profile gavel. That’s because this midterm is Ohio’s special election where voters are selecting a senator to serve out the remainder of Vice President JD Vance‘s term.

Brown’s post, therefore, may not only deeply impact Democrats’ policy agenda but could also play a key role in the party’s success in winning the battleground seat in 2028.

Some members are already suggesting the party should try to find a middle ground.

“Some accommodation that recognizes he would not be a rank freshman would make sense. But that’s distinct from handing him back a leadership role at Banking,” said Sen. Chris Coons.

The Ohio Democrat served as the top Democrat on the Banking panel for a decade. He was also a longtime member of Finance as well as Agriculture, where he would also be the most senior member if his previous service counted.

To give Brown a gavel on Agriculture or Banking could set up clashes with the Democrats now expected to lead their party on the panels: Sens. Michael Bennet and Elizabeth Warren, respectively.

It would also break Senate Democrats’ caucus rules, and precedent is not on Brown’s side when it comes to making exceptions.

Still, aides and lobbyists around the panels expect Democrats will be eager to give Brown some sort of perch.

Those close to him have been encouraging him to seek the Agriculture gavel. It’d allow him to deliver valuable policy wins for Ohio’s rural areas, influence the farm bill if it gets punted to next year and help guide the direction of cryptocurrency regulation.

Another possibility that avoids an intraparty clash: hand Brown a seat on Appropriations, which could potentially give him a subcommittee gavel and federal funding clout.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has avoided any firm commitments on Brown’s seniority, saying last month when asked: “Let’s win back the Senate first.”

What else we’re watching:

— OMAR RAID RAISES QUESTIONS FOR GOP: House Republicans — including Majority Whip Tom Emmer — have publicly cheered on the Trump administration’s investigation of GOP boogeyman Rep. Ilhan Omar. But the raid raises thorny questions for GOP leaders about how aggressively Congress wants to defend itself — regardless of party — from encroaching federal prosecutors. Lawmakers’ work communications are protected from prosecutors’ scrutiny, with few exceptions, under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. That draws into question whether the emails, texts, and materials on Omar’s phone, which was seized in the raid, could legally be reviewed by Trump officials. So far, Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to weigh in on how the House’s legal team may defend Omar.

— TRUMP’S TRICKY FARM MONEY PROMISE: Trump’s move Monday to turn out GOP voters by promising to send farmers $8 billion in taxpayer money is already facing a reality check. The internal USDA taxpayer-funded account Trump is tapping doesn’t actually have enough money in it right now to make the payments, meaning Congress will have to approve new funds or the administration will have to take it from another program, according to three Trump officials granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Plus, farmers wouldn’t receive the payments until late November or early December at the earliest — well past Election Day, according to three people close to the plans.

Jasper Goodman, Grace Yarrow, Kyle Cheney and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

This member is so frustrated with Congress he wants voters to sidestep it

Published

7 hours ago

October 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

At the end of one of the least productive Congresses in modern history, freshman Rep. Johnny Olszewski is so sick of the gridlock on Capitol Hill that he wants voters to bypass it entirely.

“It’s been a long two years,” the Maryland Democrat said in a Tuesday interview.

“One of the things that’s made it difficult as a new member is to see not only the dysfunction, but also the missed opportunities,” he added. “There are so many issues out there that Americans support that this Congress and frankly prior Congresses have failed to act on.”

Fed up with the lack of progress on popular policies like banning congressional stock trading, equipping police with body cameras or protecting in vitro fertilization, Olszewski is introducing a constitutional amendment Thursday, first shared with POLITICO, that would create a mechanism for voters to make federal law directly.

The measure would give voters 18 months to gather signatures from at least 5% of people who participated in the most recent presidential election in 25 states. Then any qualifying direct-democracy measure would be put on ballots for the next national election and need a 60% national majority to pass.

Votes to declare war or direct federal spending would not be eligible under the proposal.

“If we were acting, there’d be no need for this to come into play,” Olszewski said. “It would create a really important backstop for the American people to say, ‘You know what … irrespective of which party is in power, Congress is failing to meet not just our everyday needs but act on issues that we overwhelmingly support and want to see acted upon.’”

The amendment — which itself would require support from two-thirds of the House and Senate as well as three-quarters of states — is an incredible longshot and would create serious implementation headaches, but Olszewski — a former civics teacher — hopes his proposal will spark a discussion about congressional reform.

“I understand that any constitutional amendment is going to be difficult,” Olszewski said. “But I’m hopeful that at least for the lame duck session, this is an opportunity to create a conversation around the fact that we have been so gridlocked that we have failed to address the needs of the American people.”